characterise

«characterise» in Mova's school dictionary: To be the typical feature or quality of something — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

verb (characterise, characterises, characterised, characterising); US spelling characterize

meaning for a pupil

1) To be the typical feature or quality of something. tree →

2) To describe what someone or something is like. tree →

sense in the lessons

Used in science and English lessons: "deserts are characterised by little rain", "how would you characterise the main character?". Formal; common in exam questions. Phrases: be characterised by, characterise as.

examples

• Deserts are characterised by very little rain. tree →
• How would you characterise the giant in the story? tree →
• The music is characterised by fast drums. tree →
• The teacher characterised the class as hard-working. tree →
• Mammals are characterised by having fur or hair. tree →
• Her paintings are characterised by bright colours. tree →
• The firm foundations of common sense, the shrewd shots at uncommon sense, that characterise all the Fables, belong not him but to humanity. tree →

note

UK, Australia, NZ, Ireland often spell it "characterise"; the USA and Canada spell it "characterize". Nouns: character, characteristic (a typical feature). Not a maths word.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «characterise» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.